84, Charing Cross Road

Lovely Book Town

In London, There is a charming book town along Charing Cross Road. When I was living near there in 2012, I used to visit and enjoy book hunting frequently. Although this book town declined in recent years, I felt that a bibliomanias atmosphere and people’s respects for books in this town were not changed, just what they used to be. There were something we lost by modern book-selling system. If you are such a bibliomania like the people in Charing Cross, I recommend you this story which is an advocate which represents the excellence of this old book town and people.

The Letters between Book Lovers

It all began with a letter which a book lover was inquiring about rare second-hand books. The letter was actually written by the author Helene in New York, to a bookseller, Frank at Charing Cross. It is interesting that the only information the reader has is based on a series of letters about greetings and Q&A about books.

To say conversely, there is no direct reference to the emotions of the writers. But, Helene’s witty letters and Frank’s heartwarming responses gradually made their relationship tight. The letters begin in 1949 and end, twenty years later, in 1969, amazingly over twenty-years.

A small gift

While they never actually meet each other in the flesh, you can read between the lines of the letters that they truly cared for each other. Her expectations to arriving books, and jokes to feel for bookstore staffs. In response to her, bookseller’s consideration for a reader abroad. Someone might feel boring and can’t understand this trivia about this story. But, That’s it! The book tells us how important such tiny heart-to-heart exchanges are especially in “Efficiencism” age.